5.  The applicants, all of Romani origin, living, at the time of the facts, in Psari, near Aspropyrgos. Ninety-eight applicants were school-aged children between the ages of five and a half and twelve in 2008-2009 and 2009-2010. Forty-two applicants were adults, parents or guardians of other applicants. The applicants belong to thirty-eight families. Some of them were applicants in the case which gave rise to the judgment Sampanis and others v. Greece (no. 32526/05, 5 June 2008).
6.  The applicants refer to the factual circumstances of that judgment for the period up to October 2007 and in particular to the following:
“29.  On 20 June 2006, the third constituency of the West Attica Primary Education Council sent a letter to the director of Attica periphery. She informed him that for the 2005-2006 school year, fifty-four students of Romani origin had been enrolled in the 10th primary school of Aspropyrgos. She stated that “preparatory classes [were] provided for the Romani students, in order to assure their adaptation to the schooling environment, given the deficiencies from which they suffered and various other reasons making it impossible for them to integrate into ordinary classes.” She added that “despite the progress made by Romani students in the preparatory classes, all of these students are not yet fit to integrate into ordinary classes.” 30.  On 5 April 2007, prefabricated rooms of the 10th primary school were set on fire by unknown people. It appears from the file that in September 2007, the two rooms were replaced but because of infrastructure problems, they were not operational. In September 2007, a 12th primary school was created in Aspropyrgos, to which Romani children were transferred. The record shows that in October 2007, this school was not yet operational, because of the infrastructure problems. The Government alleges that the establishment of the 12th primary school in Aspropyrgos was intended only to relieve congestion at the 10th primary school.”
7.  By Decision No. 10781/D4/2008 of 25 January 2008, published in the Official Gazette of 30 January 2008, the Ministers of Education and Finances created the 12th primary school of Aspropyrgos, which was supposed to welcome Romani and non-Romani students without distinction.
8.  During the 2007-2008 school year, the Romani students were still educated in an annex of the main building of the 10th school. During Christmas vacation, the rooms of the annex building were damaged. On 8 January 2008, following a complaint lodged by the school principal, the police assured that she would approach the prosecutor.
9.  According to the information provided by the 12th primary school, at the end of the 2008 school year, sixty students were enrolled at the beginning of the school, eighteen had taken occasional courses, nine had finished the school year with many absences and, after a test, three of them had been considered as having the age and level necessary to be integrated into ordinary classes.
10.  On 3 March 2008, the mayor of Aspropyrgos convened the directors of the primary schools and invited them to redraw the school map and the school district zones. They attributed the same recruiting area to the 9th, 10th and 12th schools.
11.  On 11 March 2008, a meeting took place at the 10th school, organised by the Ombudsman, between the direction of this school, the prefecture, the association of parents of (non-Romani) students and the Ombudsman. The point was to convince the parents to renounce their opposition to the integration of Romani students in ordinary classes. However, an intervention by the mayor of Aspropyrgos did not permit this meeting to succeed nor was it possible to enrol the three Romani students who had a sufficient level of education into ordinary classes.
12.  On 8 April 2008, the Western Attica Primary Education Division defined the area of recruitment for each of the twelve schools in the region. The area of Psari, where the applicants resided, was attached to the 12th school.
13.  On 24 June 2008, following a report by the committee responsible for checking of the conformity of school buildings with the provisions in force, the prefect of West Attica decided to use temporarily, for the premises of the 12th school, the prefabricated building next to the 10th school, which had been used in 2005 to host remedial classes.
14.  These premises of the 12th school suffered damage again during the summer holidays of 2008, where all the equipment was stolen.
15.  On 8 September 2008, the director of the 12th school reported in detail to the regional authorities of the Ministry of Education the damages inflicted upon the building and concluded that it was not in a state to welcome students. He confirmed that the state of the facilities did not meet the basic needs of the school and imperilled the safety of the students and teaching staff.
16.  However, on 10 September 2008, on the eve of the first day of school, Romani families were informed that the 12th school opened its doors, on the premises next to the 10th school.
17.  On 22 September 2008, a delegation of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) of the Council of Europe visited, among others, the Romani community of Psari and to the 12th school.
18.  On 24 September and 8 October 2008, the services of the Ministry of Education invited the mayor of Aspropyrgos and the prefect of West Attica to authorise the merging of the 12th and 11th schools, attracting attention to the fact that this case was supported by European institutions as a result of complaints lodged against Greece.
19.  A letter sent on 26 September 2008 to the Ministry of Education by the mayor of Aspropyrgos and the parents of non-Romani students reads as follows:
“The creation of the 12th primary school did not aim to (...) segregate Romani students from other students in the district schools. It has, however, become an inevitable necessity because Gypsies living in tents have chosen to live a nomadic life, in dumps they have created themselves, without worrying about basic standards of hygiene, and indulging in illegal activities which have a negative impact on vulnerable social groups and, more generally, on the inhabitants of Aspropyrgos. (...) in spite of all this, [the Romani children] dare to demand to share the same classrooms as the other students of Aspropyrgos, a considerable percentage of whom are sensitive social groups or children of economic immigrants (...)”
20.  On 17 October 2008, the prefect of West Attica refused the demanded authorisation (paragraph 18 above) on the grounds that he wished to avoid creating social, cultural and educational problems. He also noted that the 12th school was closer to the homes of the Romani students than the 11th.
21.  On 8 December 2008, the Ombudsman of the Republic addressed the Prefect of West Attica a letter urging him to reconsider his decision of 17 October 2008. He stated, inter alia, the following:
“The 12th school of Aspropyrgos has a history of arson and vandalism which is not important to remember. However, we would like to draw your attention to the state of this school as described in the letter of 8 September 2008 sent by the director of this school to the head of the First Regional Education Office of West Attica, because this document was not submitted to you before you made your decision.
The sombre aspects of the facilities include, among other things: with respect to the school yard: the fence in some places can be dangerous for children. In addition, swings and basketball hoops are destroyed. Regarding toilets: there are currently no functioning toilets in the schools. These were all looted: faucets, light fixtures, cables, door handles, and a part of the door were stolen. With regard to classrooms: doors, windows, cables, electrical panels, lighting fixtures, benches and chairs were stolen. There is no longer any air-cooling or heating apparatus. Regarding the teachers’ room: everything that existed in this room was stolen.
In light of this, I consider that the facilities of the 12th elementary school of Aspropyrgos, as they present themselves today, are not able to cover even the basic needs of a school unit and endanger the safety of students and teachers.”
22.  The Ombudsman stresses that, despite the fact that the recruitment zone of the 12th school included the relevant school population, all the students enrolled for the 2008-2009 school year belonged to the Romani community, while the Presidential Decree no. 201/1998 required that it was mandatory to transfer all students living in the recruitment zone from a school to the school in question and that the transfer should take place even in the absence of a request from the parents. The Ombudsman acknowledged that the prefecture was not responsible for the non-application of the decree, but he urged the prefecture to take into consideration, in the exercise of its functions, the fact that the non-application of the decree had had the effect of turning the 12th school into a “ghetto school,” given the fact that not a single non-Romani student from the region were enrolled there.
23.  The Ombudsman also pointed out that the Ministry of Education was in favour of integrating Romani students into the mainstream education system and that a newsletter of 10 September 2008, titled “Registration and Schooling of Romani” recommended that in each class, the percentage of students from another culture did not exceed 50%.
24.  The Ombudsman stated that there were problems of intolerance on the part of the non-Romani population and that the association of parents of non-Romani students had created problems in 2005. He admitted that the annex of the 10th school, renamed the 12th school, had been created under the pressure of incidents which had been caused by the parents of non-Romani students and which had led to the conviction of Greece in the judgment of the Court Sampanis and others (cited above). He pointed out that the continued refusal to authorise the merging of the 12th and of the 11th school constituted an unjustified discrimination against Romani students, as it prevented them from blending into the cultural environment of the region and was motivated solely by the prefect’s concern to avoid new incidents, this time on the part of the parents of students of the 11th school.
25.  On 17 March 2009, the director of the 12th school wrote to the mayor of Aspropyrgos, inviting him to equip the Romani camp with running water because, according to him, the absence of facilities had a negative effect on the health and safety of the children, and consequently on their ability to pursue their education. By a response of 31 March 2009, the Mayor rejected this on the grounds that the owners of the land on which the Romani were living were trying to obtain the expulsion of the latter and threatened him with prosecution if he accepted the request in question.
26.  On 30 May and 20 July 2009, the applicants address two letters to the competent services of the Ministry of Education and to the Minister himself, inviting them to allow Romani children to attend the 10th school and to establish a program for them which would have been designed for the Muslim Romani of Thrace and which would have proved effective. They received no answer.
27.  On 11 June 2009, the director of the 12th school informed the services of the Minister of Education that the school books were inappropriate for the Romani whose maternal language was not Greek.
28.  On 23 July 2009, the Ombudsman wrote again to the Ministry of Education. He informed him that the prefect, which had, on 17 October 2008, refused to authorise the merging of 12th and 11th schools, did not wish to revisit this decision. He stressed that the operation of this ghetto school for Romani students was contrary to the position of the ministry, which was unfavourable to schools “exclusively reserved for Gypsy students.” He availed himself of the letter of 8 September 2008 from the Director of the 12th school, according to which the state of the facilities would not have covered the basic needs of a school and would have jeopardised the safety of students and teaching staff. He added that the needs could not be met by the mayor of Aspropyrgos, who openly declared on 26 September 2008, that the Romani children “dare to demand to share the same classrooms as the other students of Aspropyrgos”. He pointed out that the mayor had ignored an invitation from the regional authorities of the ministry to “do what is necessary for the immediate rehabilitation” of the 12th school. He drew attention to the fact that Greece was “under control” in executing the judgment of Sampanis and others and that it had not made any progress so far in this regard.
29.  On 1 August 2009, the applicants lodged a complaint against the 10th and 12th schools with respect to the duties of the office. The examination of the complaint was still pending as of the date of submission to the Court, on 10 October 2011, of their observations in response to those of the Government.
30.  The documents in the file show that between October 2008 and June 2009, the director of the 12th school sent several letters to regional education authorities, the prefect and the mayor of Aspropyrgos to alert them to the shortcomings which the school would have faced, including the school bus route, the construction of a playground, the installation of additional heating and toilets, the construction of two additional classrooms, and the creation of a kindergarten and the abandonment of classes by some students from April 2009.
31.  According to the Government, the prefabricated building in which the 12th school had been installed had four classrooms, a teacher’s office, four toilets, two shower rooms, a cafeteria, and a landscaped courtyard. Three classes had been created while the official capacity of the school would be six classes. It appears from a document prepared by the Ministry of Education on 12 July 2011 and submitted by the Government that during the period of operation of the 12th school (2008-2011), two students had obtained their diploma for finishing primary school.
32.  From 2009, the school would have had a fax machine, a photocopier, a computer and a library. There would have been five teachers: four teachers and a gymnastics teacher. The number of students enrolled at the material time (2008-2009) would have been 226. The school attendance of the students would have been irregular, the number of people present varying from thirty to sixty per day because of the way of life of these students’ families, frequently traveling for seasonal work.
33.  The fact that all students of the 12th school were of Romani origin was due to the attitude of local society and not to the Greek state. The Ministry of Education reportedly asked the school administration to proceed with the immediate registration of non-Romani children whose homes were in the school’s recruitment zone, even in the absence of a request on the part of the parents concerned, but it would have been found out that these children were already enrolled in other schools, private or public.
34.  On the basis of the official documents in the file, the applicants challenge several of the Government’s assertions, particularly those concerning the configuration and the size of the school as well as the number of classes in service. According to their version, the extension of the school to its current size took place in December 2009, but its capacity was still insufficient for the approximately 200 students who would have been enrolled. By a letter of 29 September 2009, the director of the 12th school had informed the competent authorities of the Ministry of Education that only two novice teachers, without any experience, were assigned to the school. However, according to the applicants who refer to a ministerial decision of 25 September 2006, the school should have provided, in addition to the director, at least four teachers for the 2008-2009 school year for the number of 226 students provided by the Government, which would be incorrect.
35.  The absenteeism of Romani students would have been due to the location of the bus stop, far from the school, and to the impossibility for Romani students to walk in the cold and rain without suitable clothing. In addition, they should have crossed the area where the racist incidents in 2004-2005 led to the creation of the prefabricated annex of the 10th school reserved for Romani students.
36.  According to the applicants, following the establishment of the school map, in April 2008, the administration of the 10th school should have provided the 12th school the names of the students enrolled in the 10th grade and who, according to the new demarcation were to be transferred to the 12th school for the 2008-2009 school year. The applicants state that, if this transfer had taken place, the 12th school would have had from the beginning of its operation, hundreds of non-Romani students and thus would have been an ordinary school. This would never have happened because the new school would have been designed to work only with Romani students.
37.  According to the Government, the applicants Zografo Sampani, Andreas Sampanis, Georgia Sampani, Ionna Sampani and Thomas Christakis had an education which was considered “sufficient” from the point of view of their participation in the courses.
38.  The applicants Ionnis Sampanis, Christos Sampanis, Kyprianos Velios, Christina Veliou, Panayotis Liakopoulos, Kyriakos Sampanis, Panayota Passio, Ekias Bantis, Ako Passiou, Kyriaki Karahaliou, Vasilios Sampanis, Maria Sampani, Ako Sampani, Giannoula Sampani, Nikolaos Mouratis, Ako Tsakiris, Ako Tsakiri and Antonios Karagounis were said to have had an “occasional” schooling: they would have gone to class from time to time, so that their schooling would have been interrupted by long periods of absence.
39.  The other child applicants, that is 75 out of 98 children, would not have been enrolled in school and would not have had the quality of students at the 12th school.
b)  The 2009/2010 school year
40.  On the intervention of the Greek Helsinki Monitor and of its executive director acting as the parents’ representative, the 12th school would have registered all the child applicants, except Ako Sampani, Vasiliki Sampani, Ako Pasios and Paraskevi Sampani. Paraskevi Sampani had completed her primary education in 2008 in a school other than the 12th Aspropyrgos school. Among the students enrolled, 59 reportedly dropped out of school during the year. The schooling of the 35 others would have been occasional.
41.  In the first place, the applicants allege that the disclosure by the Government of the above elements concerning them personally constitutes a violation of the law No. 2472/1997 on the protection of personal data and of Article 8 of the Convention.
42.  In second place, they indicate that these elements are not reliable: the terms employed by the Government such as “sufficient” and “occasional” schooling, were vague, which indicated that the authorities of the 12th school did not have a precise insight as to the education of the applicants but that they were based on impressions. Moreover, the information provided by the Government concerning some of the student applicants had contradicted those produced by the Government in the execution of the Sampanis and others v. Greece judgment (cited above).